African chemicals giant launches renewables hunt

South African chemicals and mining giant Sasol has launched a search for 600MW of wind and solar power in the same week it was excluded from the world’s largest investment fund.

by Craig Richard 15 May 2020

Sasol's Secunda facility in north-east South Africa (pic credit: Antimatter Machine/Wikimedia Commons)

The company announced a request for information (RFI) about renewable energy powering its South African operations - a coal liquefaction plant in Secunda and chemical production facility in Sasolburg.

It hopes to identify companies that could supply energy through a power purchase agreement, and aims to procure about 600MW of renewable energy.

Sasol added that it believes this capacity could help reduce the company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 1.6 million tonnes annually.

It aims to reduce its absolute GHG from South African operations by at least 10% off a 2017 baseline, it added.

The launch of the RFI comes in the same week that Norway’s $1 trillion Government Pension Fund Global blacklisted Sasol - as well as Germany’s RWE and three other companies - for breaching rules about coal investment.

Sasol added that projects with capacities of at least 20MW will be eligible in its RFI, which has a submission deadline of 5 June.